On Writing Good Commit Messages

A commit message is a letter to your future self. Make it worth reading.

The Problem with Bad Commits

We’ve all seen them:

fix
wip
asdf
final final FINAL

These tell you nothing. Six months later, when a bug surfaces and you’re spelunking through git log, these are useless noise.

The Rule of Thumb

The subject line of a commit should complete this sentence:

If applied, this commit will…

So: “Add input validation to login form” rather than “validation stuff”.

Structure

A good commit:

1. Subject — 50 chars or less, imperative mood, no period
2. Blank line
3. Body (optional) — explain what and why, not how

Add rate limiting to the auth endpoint

Without this, a single IP could spam login attempts indefinitely.
Uses a sliding window of 10 requests per minute per IP, backed by Redis.

Why It Matters

The diff shows what changed. The commit message explains why. Both together are what make a codebase navigable years later.

Treat your commit history like documentation — because it is.